Practicing Medicine
by Eric Neo Matrix
Summary: Dr. Angela Ziegler finds herself on an operating table under the knife of a very different kind of doktor - one who works for a strange team of red-garbed mercenaries, and has a rather terrifying scientific "interest" in seeing what makes her tick. For science, of course.


**Warning** : This story contains graphic medical torture, bad teammates spamming Call for Medic, and birds. Viewer discretion is strongly advised.

...

 **Practicing Medicine**

The first thing Angela "Mercy" Ziegler realized was that she was laying on a table in a near pitch-black room. She felt quite dizzy and her dry mouth panged with thirst. Mercy tried to move her arms and legs to get off the table, only to find that she could only move them a few centimeters. As she struggled to move her head, she could just barely make out metal shackles around her wrists. She couldn't move her ankles either; she guessed similar shackles had also pinned her ankles to the table.

Her mind started reeling, trying to remember how she got here and the context behind it. Something about a portal and a strange group of men in red uniforms. Nothing else came to mind, and even she didn't know if her dim recollection was true.

"... Hello?" Mercy called out. "Is someone there? Anyone?"

 _"Oh my, it's dark in here. And-"_ Mercy then heard a gasp. _"Aha, she's awake! Perfect."_

With a loud flick of a switch, harsh light flooded the room and blinded her for a moment, forcing her to squint as she tried to get a bearing on her surroundings.

From what she could tell she was in some sort of scientific laboratory or surgical ward. Now she got a clearer view of her situation - she was indeed strapped to a medical table in the center of the room. Several strange devices that reminded Mercy of her healing staff surrounded her, hanging from rails around the table. They had labels saying things like _Kritzkrieg_ and _Quick-Fix_ on them that she didn't recognize in the slightest. The place obviously hadn't been cleaned in some time; she managed to get quick glimpses of the tile floor covered in bloodstains and... bird poop? She reflected that it might've been one of the most disgusting medical environments she had ever seen.

Then she noticed that she was completely naked and her Valkyrie suit was nowhere in sight. She also noticed several monitors softly beeping next to her, connected to wires that snaked under the table. Was she here for some kind of surgical procedure? Mercy couldn't think of a reason why. Her suit and her biotic augmentation kept her healthy in combat situations. She also kept herself in impeccable physical health off the job, as her body shape and features proved.

A million questions started swimming through her head. She quickly became so absorbed in trying to figure out what in the world was going on that she almost forgot about the strange man in the room with her. Her curiosity and confusion was broken by a voice with a truly outrageous German accent now only a few feet away.

"Frau Angela Ziegler." He peeked at a clipboard in his hands. "Codename 'Mercy'. Thirty-seven year-old medical chief of staff from Zurich... former associate of Overvatch... bla bla bla... Did I miss anything?"

The person she locked eyes with was a forty-something man with small round eyeglasses and a blood-spattered white button shirt. He didn't look like anyone from the former Overwatch medical team, nor could Mercy recognize him as any known terrorist or Talon agent. Still, even if didn't know this stranger's intentions, being shackled to a table without her clothes on in the presence of a man she didn't know made her extremely uncomfortable. Mercy could feel her heartrate skyrocketing as he slowly approached her.

"Who are you? Did you... did you tie me up here and take my suit?"

"Oh yes, your suit! I apologize for zat. I vould never stoop so low to, ahem, dishonor you." His expression turned slightly darker, "Even if I can't say ze same about Spy... Anyvay, it's only for research purposes. Can't have your incredible equipment affecting my data."

Mercy didn't like the answer and her expression darkened too. "Normally I'd like to know a man's name before they take my clothes off and strap me to a table. Preferably after a few dates first."

The unknown man smiled and promptly gave her an overly-dramatic low bow. "But of course Frau Ziegler. I don't think ve have been introduced. You can simply call me Medic."

"So 'Medic'... what is this? Why am I here? Are you from Talon? Because if Talon wants me dead, then you can just-"

"Talon?" The Medic interrupted her. "Vhat is zis ' _Talon_ '? I vork for MannCo and ze RED Team, and our Administrator has been very interested in your Overvatch in recent months since zat little, ahem, accident vith Merasmus. Such a fascinating group and time period, your Overvatch... Of course, zat's not my place. I have other personal interests in you."

"Time period?" echoed Mercy.

Medic didn't answer her. He instead turned around and moved over to a large refrigerator not far from the foot of the table. He opened it up and started rummaging through it.

Mercy only managed to get a small glance of what was in the fridge, but it was enough. A severed head of a man in a ski mask with a battery attached the neck stump sat in the cold fridge next to a plate of sandwiches. Several preserved human hearts and organs and bones also lay chilled in labeled metal trays, surrounded by other parts like severed fingers and toes, nails, hair clippings, and strips of stretched skin. Even for a medical professional the macabre sight disturbed Mercy, and not only because it was a terribly unsanitary way of handling delicate biological material. _What kind of doctor is this guy? Someone needs their license revoked,_ she thought.

"Kill me." The severed head whispered too quietly for Mercy to hear.

"Later." Medic whispered back to the head as he closed the door, his arms full of chrome trays and equipment. "Now vhere vas I? Oh yes!"

He carried the empty trays in both arms, the loud clangs of the tools inside them rattling through the room. Mercy was able to move her head just enough to get a peek at some of them as he put them to the side - multiple lengths and sizes of bone saw, surgical knives, syringes, harnesses for those strange medi-gun devices, and other strange tools that not even Mercy had seen before.

"So why did you bring me here Medic? Is there something wrong with me? Am I infected or sick?" Mercy kept getting more and more confused by the situation with every moment, until her thoughts went to a much darker place. "Are you... going to kill me?"

Medic looked rather bewildered. "Zat's ze last thing I vant to do, Frau Ziegler. I simply need a few readings on some pieces from your body. Nothing important of course. I also vanted to take some data on your augmentations."

Mercy was about to inquire what "pieces" he was referring to when another thought came to mind; she didn't notice any sort of anesthesia, drugs or gas or otherwise, among his various tools.

"Wait, if you're operating on me, should-" Mercy's brain slowly began to process what was about to happen. "Shouldn't I be put under anesthetics first?"

Medic paused for a second. "Vell, technically no, but zat's not important."

Mercy gave him a nervous laugh. She knew a real doctor would never operate on any patient without giving a dosage. "Alright alright Medic, that's pretty funny. You had me there for a bit! Really, you did! Now l-let's just get these off and go get my suit, and we can pretend this never happened. One professional to another. That sound good?"

He didn't acknowledge Mercy directly, but she noticed him faintly smiling as he inspected each sterilized surgical tool and bonesaw and needle. Something about the look in his eyes deeply shocked Mercy; she could easily see cruelty, sadism, and madness behind those spectacles that made even her old enemy Moira look like a saint. It took Mercy a few seconds for the enormity and seriousness of the situation to register.

"You're not a doctor at all are you..." Mercy uttered breathlessly. "Y-you're... you're a torturer..."

"You're right!" Medic nodded enthusiastically as he stepped forward with a wide toothy grin and bent over the table. Now his face was only inches away from hers and she could see her reflection in his glasses. "I'm not technically a doktor, Frau Ziegler. I just practice _medicine_."

Despite her attempts to put on a brave facade, absolute terror filled her mind. Mercy couldn't help but pant and start shaking in her restraints. "Whoever you are, if I hurt you or your family... If I failed to save someone you cared about... I'm... I'm sorry... Please don't do this... Please let me go..."

"Hurt me? Oh no no no, little fraulein." Medic chirped as he set down his tools. "Zis is for science, of course! And a person from ze future clad with a power suit is ze chance of a lifetime. Vhy, your body has so many vonderful and fascinating pieces to it, it vould be a crime NOT to take a closer look!"

Mercy quickly realized begging for her life wasn't working. "They'll come for you... When my friends find out what you've done... They won't let you get away with this..."

"Don't fret about zis too much Frau Ziegler. I do zis to my teammates all ze time. You'll be fine. Mostly." Medic casually dismissed her with a wave of his hand. He inspected a number of pre-filled syringes he had already prepared.

"Y-You're insane!" Mercy uselessly struggled against her bonds.

The Medic smiled and then let out a hearty chuckle. "I'm not insane Frau Ziegler. I'm simply going mad! But I don't think it's anything to vorry about. Anyvay, let's begin shall ve? I vant to get zis finished before a new round starts."

 _This isnt real Angela._ Mercy begged that this whole situation was some kind of twisted nightmare. _This isn't real. Wake up. This isn't happening._ "Listen... If you let me go, I can help you! I-I don't know what's wrong with you or why you're doing this, but I can get you the help you need! Just let me out of here and we can get your life back on track. I..."

Medic completely ignored her pleading as he circled around to the back of the table where Mercy's head was resting and then bent down to look at something underneath. Mercy felt a red beam of energy from behind the table shroud her head for a few moments before dissipating. She couldn't move enough to see what it was though.

Now Mercy was in full panic mode. "W-What was that?"

"Oh zis? Zis is just my Vaccinator. A variant of ze one I use in battle, at least. Zis freezes nerve stimulation of ze muscles for easier vork. Unfortunately it von't protect nerve endings." Medic shrugged nonchalantly. "Budget cuts, you know. So... ahem, you'll feel a little prick."

He moved the Vaccinator beam over to her right arm while taking a scalpel and surgical scissors in his other hand. More like a serial killer than a doctor, Medic promptly sank the blade deep into her wrist and down the center of her arm along the veins. Mercy shut her eyes as her whole forearm started burning. He carefully followed the blade with the scissors to cut through any strands of flesh that hadn't been seperated. Mercy loudly hissed and shouted as the scissors nicked several veins and warm blood started dripping down her arm.

 _"MEEEEEDIIIIIIC!"_ A loud Scottish voice suddenly rang from outside the room, cutting the procedure short. _"MEDIC!"_

"Baaaaah... _Schwienhunds_!" Medic growled as he turned around and stomped towards the door. He yelled through the door to someone that Mercy couldn't see. "OUT! GET OUT!"

Unfortunately for Mercy, he left his knife and scissors where they were. Which meant they were still jabbed in her arm, with the critical vein in her wrist sliced open and draining blood fast over the table. Mercy knew she would die from blood loss within a few minutes if Medic didn't get back to the table fast. Her skin felt slick; cold sweat washed over her and her head began spinning. Without her Valkyrie suit, her biotic augmentations alone only delayed her fate.

 _"DOC, C'MON MAN!"_ Another voice with a Boston accent followed. _"I'm dyin' here!"_

Medic stomped his foot and promptly slammed the door shut, locking it once more. He sighed in frustration before returning to the table side. "My skill is VASTED on zis team! But it's not vasted on _you_."

Realizing that his "patient" had started bleeding out, Medic turned on the Medigun above the table and aimed it towards Mercy's wrist. The bleeding slowed as the Medigun beam and the nanomachines in her bloodstream started regenerating body tissue. She managed to turn just enough to see the Medic's device work on her wound.

Then, shoving his hand into her opened arm, Medic tugged on one of the partially-cut veins. Another shot of fire rippled through her limb and Mercy cried out as as he pulled harder and harder until it protruded out of her skin. She fought through the pain as best she could.

He gently moved a surgical knife over the blue vein like a violin bow. And somewhere nearby, faint music could be heard playing.

Medic laughed a little and leaned closer to Mercy. "Heheh, sorry. Force of habit."

He carefully cut through two sections of the vein with the knife, severing it completely from the others in her arm. He held the length of blood vessel in both hands as he examined it carefully before placing it in a chrome tray next to the table. The Medigun beam and the biotic nanomachines in her blood slowly started to regenerate the missing section.

"I see. It does seem like zese augmentations vould react to blunt cardiovascular damage. Fascinating!" Medic peered at the arm gradually healing itself.

"Whatever happened to the... the Hippocratic Oath?" Mercy rasped through gritted teeth, trying to keep herself together even as her sliced arm throbbed with pain and lingering nausea from blood loss clouded her mind.

"I think of it as more of a Hippocratic guideline, Frau Ziegler," said Medic. "But now zat I see you're ready, ve can move on to ze exciting part!"

Mercy really didn't want to do know what that meant. Medic swiveled another medical gun above her arm - the Quick Fix. With a few seconds of the Quick Fix's healing stream, her sliced arm rapidly closed itself in real time, leaving only some excess blood in the aftermath.

Her interest in the Quick Fix and its healing power didn't last long. Medic moved farther down the table with a fresh, larger scalpel in his hand. He started to make a long horizontal cut across her pelvis, just above her crotch, while carefully parting the rest of the skin with his uncleaned scissors. Moving up to the rest of her body, he made a quick incision right above her ribcage and slowly connected it to the first.

Medic lightly shushed her as he continued to cut, as if trying to calm down a small child, though her suppressed gasps of pain drowned him out. She ground her teeth together as tears started falling down her face. She took long, pained breaths, trying to fight through it with every ounce of willpower she had.

He finally finished the incisions and then moved the Vaccinator beam down her spine so that the crimson energy consumed her middle. Mercy dimly felt trickles of warm blood slowly ooze from the long cuts, although the pain stopped thanks to the Vaccinator's energy.

"What are you doi-" She didn't get the chance to finish her sentence.

"Zere we go!"

With a moist, wet gooey sound, Medic took one edge of the skin flap and gently pulled it back, opening up her chest and abdomen. He immediately pulled his regular Medigun over her and turned it on. Its healing stream quickly filled her body cavity.

Mercy only could move her head up enough to get a small glimpse of her ribcage and lungs. The bizarre sensation, combined with the lack of feeling, disturbed her. Even for a hardened orderly with decades of experience dealing with surgeries and physical trauma, Mercy never thought in her life she'd ever actually see someone else open her up.

"Oh don't be such a baby," Medic said, shaking Mercy from her stupor with a cheery smile. "Zis is simply to see how your internals function in response to zese experiments. Ze Medigun vill keep you alive and vell, so don't vorry about any infections or mild cases of death."

He reached into her vivisected innards under her ribcage and attached two electrodes directly onto her rapidly-beating heart. The monitor next to her flickered to life as it showed her heart rate while the Medigun did its work.

Mercy tried with all her strength to keep herself together, but her vision started to blur again as the lingering aftereffects of the blood loss made her head spin around the room even more, almost like she was very drunk, to the point where she could barely tell what was going on around the table. After what seemed like minutes, the spinning eventually slowed as the Medigun and her own augments offset the lost fluids.

She tried blinking to get her vision back into focus. However, she suddenly realized she couldn't. Some kind of clamp or device on her eyelids held them open.

Mercy's eyes slowly started drying out, but before the sensation could become unbearable some kind of liquid from the clamp dripped down into them, moistening them up. Mercy shuddered to think about the reasons Medic could have to create such a thing, but she managed to keep a modicum of calm despite the situation. The monitor still thumped next to her as she tried to scan the room around her to the best of her ability; the Vaccinator beam prevented her from moving her neck.

This time Medic shined a flashlight in her eyes. Without any eye protection over her corneas, the harsh light nearly blinded her, and she would've winced if she physically could.

"Yes... Perfect. Zat vill do nicely. Now Frau Ziegler, open vide!"

Putting down the light, the Medic held up another tool in his other hand; a large hypodermic medical syringe on steroids, with tubes and gears along the front. It said _Vita-Saw 3000_ in cartoonishly large letters on the side. He pushed a button on the rear of the device and the needle slowly extended towards her face with a loud whirring pulse. If her eyelid hadn't been artificially kept open, Mercy's eyes would've widened in fear when she realized what was about to happen. The heart monitor next to her kept beeping faster and faster. She wanted to move away with every instinct in her body, but her struggles were less than useless.

She trembled as the needle slowly approached her right eye and filled more and more of her field of vision until it was all she could see. Then she felt a split-second of pressure on her eyeball increasing. Half of her vision flashed red - and then went black forever.

For a moment Mercy forgot the pain and realized how much she took her sight for granted. Now she truly understood how Ana and Torbjorn felt every day.

The needle in her eye socket suddenly began to spin, and Mercy felt her eyeball grinding down with it, almost making her throw up right there and then. The sensory overload was almost too much for her to bear, and Mercy could feel her bladder loosening as she wet herself by accident, the shame simply adding to her torture. Medic simply watched curiously as his tool continued its gruesome work. Mercy felt warm blood and viscous fluid drip down her right cheek, her hoarse cries echoing through the laboratory.

The Vita-Saw slowly drew backwards, holding her skewered eye like a grisly trophy. Medic hummed softly to himself as he turned around to another tray and carefully placed the organ into a smaller medical tray next to the large ones. As Medic started to move the Vaccinator beam off her neck and removed the strange clamps from her head, Mercy managed to turn enough to get only a single, horrifying glimpse of her own gouged eyeball staring blankly to the ceiling; an image that would haunt her for the rest of her days.

Before Mercy had time to shout or cry, a small white dove landed on Mercy's neck. It stared at her curiously before jumping onto her face and burrowing into her eye socket. She thrashed and cried so loud that she blew out her vocal cords as the bird started pecking through the empty socket looking for blood and scraps of leftover flesh.

"ARCHIMEDES, _NO_!" Medic yelled. "It's filthy in zere!"

She felt the squirming in her skull stop. Her remaining eye caught the same bloodstained dove reappear on her neck with a piece of optic nerve still in its beak. Then she winced as something gooey start dripping into it, making the wound burn so badly it felt like magma or acid had been thrown on her face.

Mercy gasped and moved her head to the side as best she could, only for her left eye to spot chunky, foul-smelling white liquid dripping down her nose. It took her an agonizing second to realize that Medic's bird pooped into her eye socket.

Medic gave a long, defeated sigh and shooed the bird away. He took a sterilized piece of cloth from his tool collection before carefully wiping off the bird droppings and blood covering the right side of her face.

"My apologies. I vish zat dumb bird vould learn one of zese days." Medic shook his head with a sorry smile. "You're doing quite vell Frau Ziegler. And don't vorry about your other eye. I only need one for now."

"... Why..." She whispered.

"So you can vatch of course." Medic's kind expression promptly turned dangerous and sinister. "Now for zis next procedure, zere vas zat one piece I vanted to run voltage tests on! In third-vorld countries, ze do zis procedure to preserve ze modesty and virginity of little girls. Unfortunately zere aren't many frauleins to do tests like zis around here, you must understand, especially not after... zat _incident_ vith Frau Pauling."

Taking a fresh surgical scalpel in his hand, Medic moved around to the end of the table and slowly crouched down between her legs.

Mercy knew exactly what he was talking about. She had seen the procedure itself in its awful glory working in war-torn African nations - and its effects on its young victims. Unfortunately for her, she was crippled and weakened by the torment wracking her head to put up any resistance.

"No... No... NO... Please stop! PLEASE!" She gasped hoarsely. "I-I'll do anything... _ANYTHING_!"

Medic looked rather annoyed as he peeked over her stomach with his blade in hand. "Ze more you move around, ze worse zis vill feel Frau Ziegler. Zis vill only sting for a moment."

The doktor continued to hum to himself as a few horrible seconds passed while he moved the Vaccinator beam to her waist in order to keep her lower body still.

And then she felt the _slicing_. It seared like an open wound filled with chili pepper or a papercut magnified by a billion times. She could feel every expert cut of the cold surgical knife part through her clitoral folds and glands and pelvic muscles, and the hot blood running into her buttocks and dripping on the table. Even her eye taken out didn't compare to the absolute agony and degradation of this torture. Not even just that, but the loss of her womanhood consumed her torture-damaged mind with despair.

Medic stood up, holding the removed clitoral hood as if he had just delivered a newborn baby. He looked it over intently before grabbing a small test tube from one of his carts.

"You see, zat didn't take long did it? Now, I vas curious about ze effect of zis voltage on human sexual organs." Medic said and cleared his throat. He moved his Medigun device so the red energy stream pointed to the floor. "Most probably couldn't vithstand zis voltage, but due to your unique modifications, I'm fairly certain your genitalia vill-"

The second he placed it under the beam, it melted into liquefied red goop with a deafening hiss.

He stared at it for a moment. "Oh. _Zat's_ not vhat I expected."

After his surprise wore off, Medic deposited what he could of the fleshy mass into the tube. Carefully closing it and placing it in his shirt pocket, he then sprinted over to his sheets on the counter and started jotting down notes with a pen as he began thinking aloud. "Hmmmmm... I suppose zat part is still too delicate. Perhaps if I transplanted it on Pyro first... or maybe infused it vith Jarate before changing voltage... Ja! Of course!"

Mercy didn't hear any of it. Her mind was only consumed by pain, pain, and more pain. Her lower body started to numb itself as Medic returned to the table and moved the Vaccinator beam back up her body while also moving the regular Medigun's beam back.

"Say hello to Adolf... when you... see him in Hell...!" Mercy grunted with a phlegm-filled groan; the last remnants of anger and hatred that she had in her.

"I've already been to Hell, Fraulein. Several times. And I swindled ze Devil for my own soul! Can you or your kiddie-pool Overvatch team say ze same, Frau Ziegler?" Medic crossed his bloodstained arms with an insulted sigh. "And besides, Hitler never really appealed to me anyvay. He shot my parents and threw my brother into Mauthausen to fuel his ovens."

Mercy and Medic locked eyes - or eye in Mercy's case - for a second. As if an idea had just come to mind, the German man's mood visibly brightened.

"You know, speaking of my family and ze Nazis... Did I ever tell you about how I lost my medical license?"

Medic began recounting the macabre tale, but Mercy didn't pay attention to any of it, still floating in an apathetic sea of torture. Her mind was teetering on the brink. She didn't have any more energy or will in her body to resist.

"-And zen vhen ze kommandant voke up, his skeleton vas missing, and ze doktor vas never heard from again!" Medic finished his tale, not aware that the woman wasn't listening to him. Then he checked the clock on the wall. "Oh, vould you look at ze time! Zat took longer zen I vould like. Ve should probably start finishing up, don't you agree?"

Moving the Medigun out of the way so it wouldn't interfere with his work, he moved a different looking medical gun - the Kritzkrieg - and an Ubersaw. He moved down the table to her right leg with the Vaccinator in hand, placing the beam over the leg while using his regular Medigun to keep her alive.

"It's good zat you have such long, pretty legs Frau Ziegler." Medic's face widened into a wicked grin as he held up the Ubersaw. "It makes bone extraction so much simpler!"

Mercy couldn't move her head enough to see what was going on, but she felt something splitting her right leg open. Slowly, carefully, as if to maximize her torment for as long as possible. She wanted to scream more, but the yells came out of her mouth as soft raspy cries, and the Vaccinator combined with the nano-augmentations kept her awake against her will.

Confident that he had cut through enough of her flesh to easily reach the bones underneath, Medic reared back with his saw in hand. He stepped forward and gave a single, expert slash straight across her fibula. Thanks to the Ubersaw's utterly bullshit Critical Hit chance, the single blow instantly critted and tore her leg wide open to the bone like a wet paper bag.

Mercy's entire body promptly seized up, her body going into shock so quickly that she couldn't even gasp. She almost bit her own tongue off from the resulting seizure of pure suffering that ripped through her.

Her lower leg simply broke off at the knee down, muscles and ligaments audibly tearing from the bones in her lower leg and foot as the Medic sawed them to pieces with his Kritz-empowered Ubersaw one by one. Each bone rather audibly shattered and crumbled as they left their joints with each gouge, each one setting her whole body aflame.

Mercy was in too much pain, horror, and anguish to comprehend. She felt the metal constantly grinding to a halt against the bones in her leg, each grind sending pieces of her skeleton into her flesh. It was far, far more suffering than her body could physically take - the only thing still keeping her conscious at all was the copious amounts of adrenaline her body was pumping into her system along with the Medigun energy in her chest cavity and spine.

Instead of screams all that came out of her mouth was a disgusting gurgling sound, followed by waves of bile and vomit as the unearthly torture turned her stomach upside down. Due to being on her back, she quickly started choking on her own barf as the foul liquid filled her mouth, and she couldn't turn her head enough to spit it all out.

"... Please... I..." was all Mercy managed to whimper through her coughing as her whole body burned and her esophagus started being cut off.

Medic jammed both of his arms into the gaping hole that had once been her lower leg. She could feel her mind slowly breaking from the stress and torture. Then it stopped, and Mercy could barely feel the right side of her anymore, even without the Vaccinator's energy. Her throat was so filled with bile that she could barely breathe.

This time he put the Ubersaw down, small shards of bone still caught in its serrated blades. He obviously wanted something else for the other limbs. Rather than the saw, he took a metal container labeled ** _HF(aq)_** \- hydrofluoric acid - on the side. With his dropper, he squeezed several drops of Sniper's piss to mix them together, before drawing the repulsive chemical mix into another solid syringe.

He injected the strange urine-colored chemical into her left leg. Mercy instantly felt the bizarre concoction going to work as it penetrated into her bloodstream and then into the leg bones, devouring the calcium that made up her skeleton and flesh from the inside out. He quickly moved the Kritzkrieg beam onto the limb, amplifying the nightmarish effects, while he started drawing samples of the resulting flesh-bone organic mush with more syringes. Her leg and foot quickly started wrinkling and turning pus-white from tissue death.

Even with all the Medic's tools and her own biotic technology, Mercy couldn't hold out any more. For a split second she felt something reach into her upper body, squeezing, trying to pull her heart right out of her chest.

The next thing she knew, she shuddered as her heart stopped and the monitor flatlined.

Finally, after all that horror, she felt the sweet release of death creep in as she gave one last shrieking gasp from cardiac arrest. Her terror at the prospect of dying gave way to simple relief that it was all over. She felt... _calm_. A sense of absolute serenity and peace. She wondered if she would be able to see the people she helped in her life in Heaven or whatever awaited.

She only regretted that she never got the chance to tell Genji how she felt about him. She hoped he would forgive her.

Before she could meet God, a pulsing red light suddenly jerked her back into consciousness and snatched death away. Her now-beating heart started throbbing loudly through her eardrums and her vision suddenly became much wider than before as red light consumed her body. She almost immediately realized why - her right eye had been reformed back to normal, though she still felt dried blood and vomit covering her face. She blinked several times to confirm that her sight had fully returned. Even the lingering throbbing in her skull stopped.

Slowly raising her head upwards, she witnessed the Medic's Quick-Fix doing its work. The stream of red healing energy closed her vivisected torso within a matter of seconds; one of the strangest sensations she had ever felt. And she could move her legs and arms again as if they hadn't just been shattered and destroyed. In fact, as she wiggled them, they felt perfectly fine and normal. Her nethers felt restored too, though she couldn't know that for sure without checking. The vomit stuck in her throat also disappeared, causing her to promptly gulp down huge amounts of oxygen.

Medic shut off the Quick-Fix before moving away from the table. He carefully washed off the various bodily fluids on his hands and shirt sleeves in the nearby sink. Then, returning to the side of the bloodsoaked table, he unharnessed his Medigun and put it on the floor next to him before gathering his tools and taking his harvested pieces to the fridge.

"It... It's over...?" Mercy whispered, her ravaged psyche helplessly confused and terrified. Even her voice had returned.

"Ja, at least for today; ve have a round starting any moment now." Medic replied, quite pleased with himself. "You are a truly vonderful patient to vork vith! I'm learning new things from you every day. Anyvay, have a pleasant nap and _auf wiedersehen_! I'll be back later for extra parts. "

"... Huh?" Mercy weakly moved her head. "Extra... parts?"

Medic simply gave her a nod as he opened up the organ fridge once more. "Black market organs don't just march directly out of exotic animals into my fridge, Frau Ziegler. Sometimes demand outstrips supply so to say. I mean how else vould my teammates respawn?"

The sudden revelation hit her trauma-damaged mind like a bus. Those organs and bones and body parts and Sandvich meat in the fridge were all pieces of her.

Mercy thrashed against her bonds so hard that she thought she would break her wrists and ankles. "No... No... _GOD NO_... KILL ME! NO!"

Medic didn't heed her cries as he made one last look around the room to make sure everything was in shape for their next session as he put on his regular mercenary uniform and white doctor's coat.

"Don't be afraid Frau Ziegler." Medic winked, giving her the scariest smile that she had ever seen. "Heroes never die!"

His demented laughter echoed through the medical laboratory as he flipped off the lights and closed the door behind him. His laugh quickly vanished as a loud hissing noise from somewhere in the darkness replaced it.

Mercy tried to breathe but her head quickly started spinning again. She guessed some kind of odorless nerve toxin or gas had been released, so she held her breath as long as she physically could. Eventually though, her weakened mind couldn't handle it anymore and she was forced to gasp for air, feeling both her vision and her brain slow down in real time. With her last bit of strength she tried to fight off losing consciousness, but she couldn't hold it back.

Then the hissing stopped abruptly, followed by a voice she dimly recognized. Mercy's vision slowly began un-blurring itself back to normal, for her to see a rather familiar girl in a yellow jumpsuit and aviator jacket breaking her shackles open, carefully handling a flashlight in her mouth so she could see in the dark as she unlatched each one.

"... Lena?" Mercy whispered. "You... How did you..."

"No time ta talk, Love!" Tracer whispered back. "Used my Displacer ta follow that creep here!"

Now that she able to move her limbs for the first time in what felt like forever, Mercy shakily rolled off the table and fell to the floor. Her old friend ran to her side.

Tracer's obvious joy at rescuing Mercy slowly gave way to a look of horror at the dried blood and vomit that still coated most of her. "What happened here? What... What did they do to you?"

Mercy had nothing left to say. Her only reaction was to sink into the floor like a beaten puppy and burst into helpless, exhausted, almost-silent tears.

Tracer immediately pulled her into a bear hug and let the broken woman cry into her shoulder. "I... Ya don't need ta say anything Doctor Ziegler. You're safe now. But we need ta get outta here 'fore more of those red creeps show up!"

Mercy desperately tried to wipe off the tears and dried bile covering her face. She knew she'd be traumatized forever by what that monster did to her, but in the end, she was still alive and somehow whole. Now there was a chance she and her comrades could stop this RED Team and their insane mercenaries from hurting other innocent people. But she knew Tracer was right; justice could come later.

Tracer looked around to make sure nobody had heard her. "Can ya stand?"

Mercy slowly rose to her feet with some difficulty. Her limbs still felt odd from the effects of the strange gas she inhaled. Even then Tracer supported Mercy on her shoulder as the two of them unlocked the door and slipped out into the dark hallway beyond. Every second Angela felt like passing out from a combination of fatigue and nerve gas.

Tracer led her down the red-colored corridors of the base carefully, checking around each corner to make sure they wouldn't be spotted. "Where'd they put your suit?"

Mercy didn't care; she could make another Valkyrie suit. It wasn't worth getting caught and thrown back into that nightmare again. She gestured to her old friend not to worry about it as best she could.

"I owe you my life Lena. I owe you... everything..."

"You can pay me back when we get outta here!" said Tracer. "This way."

To Mercy it felt like an eternity of moving through the hallways, even though only a few minutes had actually passed. They hadn't seen any of the other members of the Medic's team. At least Tracer seemed to know where they were going, and that was all Mercy wanted at the moment.

"I think we're almost out." Tracer whispered as they rounded a corner, only a stone's throw away from what looked like a garage. "Displacer's almost charged too."

Mercy turned her back to her rescuer, trying to figure out a path that would allow them to get out of the red-painted halls. "I'm just glad someone's on my side."

Then she heard Tracer carefully shuffle forward behind her.

"Eheheh, glad ta hear that Doctor Ziegler, but uh... I never really was on your side, Love."

By the time Mercy turned her head and noticed the butterfly knife that had appeared in Tracer's hand, it was too late. The knife plunged into her backside and cut through several vertebra with an expert twist of the blade. Mercy was so surprised and overwhelmed that she didn't even cry out as she fell to the ground.

A chorus of honhonhonhonhons and the Domination sound effect were the last things Mercy heard before she succumbed. Above her body, a smelly French assassin took off a silly paper mask with Tracer's face on it, transforming into the RED Spy in a puff of smoke.

"I've been looking at your x-ray, and I'm afraid YOU SUCK!" Spy burst into mocking laughter at his victim as he switched his masks and imitated Genji's voice. "' _I need healing!'_ Oh wait, I think YOU need healing! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

His hilarity was promptly interrupted by the enraged Medic storming down the hallway. _" **DUMMKOPF!**_ Vat have you done?"

Spy, who was still chuckling at his own trickery and deception, didn't seem to take Medic's protests seriously. He rolled his eyes and took a long drag on his cigarette.

"Ze next time you get ze urge to backstab Frau Ziegler again, resist it!" Medic waved his finger in his teammate's face.

"Apologies." Spy flicked away the spent cigarette in his mouth and lit up a fresh one. He obviously didn't mean it, and Medic could tell. "Well, that was fun while it lasted. Back to work."

As the Spy took off in the other direction with his disguise masks to join the rest of the RED Team, Medic took the unconscious Mercy by the arm and dragged her back down the hall to his medical laboratory. Medic wasted no time taking the knife from Mercy's back and healing the wound with his Medigun as he strapped her back onto the table. Fortunately she could still be respawned, though he wouldn't have as many parts to revive his teammates after their inevitable deaths in the coming round. He also made a mental note to clean the vomit and blood when he got back; he didn't want his beloved angel tarnished.

The Announcer would be calling for round start soon, though, and he didn't have time. Hurriedly picking up his gear and Medigun as he left, it didn't take long before he met up with the rest of the RED Team in their designated spawn. Demoman and Scout still seemed rather angry at him for whatever reason, and Heavy tried to start a conversation with the doktor, but Medic wasn't really listening to what any of them had to say.

Then, just as his team began to gather their own gear for the match, he had a eureka moment. Taking the capsule that he stored Mercy's genitals in from his coat's pocket, Medic inserted the capsule into his Medigun and flicked the switch on the side. The melted clitoral remnants effortlessly mixed with the Jarate and blood and Sandviches that powered his backpack. His UberCharge meter instantly powered to maximum.

 _Beautiful._ Medic grinned. _Zat is vhy I practice medicine. Angela Ziegler, you truly are my angel._

He followed Heavy and the rest of the RED Team out of the base onto the map. Some of the RED Team put on Unusual hats and did the Kazotsky Kick to prepare for battle. The almighty voice of the Announcer rang from the sky as RED prepared to defend their turf from BLU for one more round.

 ** _"ALERT! Mission begins in sixty seconds!"_**


End file.
